The governor must consult with the Executive Council on all important matters, but he decides what must be done. If he takes action against the express advice of his Executive Council, he owes a full explanation for doing so to the Colonial Secretary. The governor makes the laws with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council, and he must have its approval for all public spending. British common law, adapted where necessary to local conditions and Chinese customs, is the legal code of Hong Kong. Thus the colony presents a unique governmental phenomenon. Approximately ten to twenty English-speaking men holding undisputed sway over 3,300,000 subjects, of whom not one in ten understands the language of his rulers and hardly fifty percent can claim Hong Kong as their birthplace. By all visible signs, the colony is one of the best-run governments in the Far East. Its roads are paved and traffic moves in an orderly way in spite of the highest vehicle concentration per mile of road anywhere in the world. The same order prevails in the incessant shuttling of harbor vessels. Public transportation is swift, frequent and generally on schedule. Poverty and privation are everywhere, but starvation is virtually non-existent. Business and trade thrive and unemployment is low. Wages seem minuscule when compared with American standards, yet are higher than in most of the countries of Asia. A majority of its people are indifferent to the government, but they are not afraid of it. When something has to be done, there are people at the top with the resolution and the intelligence to do it without trampling human rights. Is Hong Kong’s autocracy, therefore, a model for the world? On the contrary, there is hardly another place where its practices would be applicable. Hong Kong’s exasperating uniqueness has defied even the efforts of the Colonial Office to make it conform to British government practices. With all its efficiency, however, Hong Kong has the weaknesses of its governmental structure and its political environment. Because of its extreme centralization, its almost ingrown character in relation to its constituents, it is often out of touch with the people it governs. Enormous barriers of language and culture block its view, and graft and corruption threaten it from every angle. In Asia, graft is the deadliest enemy of every form of government which pretends to deal justly with its citizens, and Hong Kong is not invulnerable to its attack.